--- title: Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal by Lev Grossman: TIME 100 description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-20T16:55:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:13:34.840Z og:title: Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal by Lev Grossman: TIME 100 og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt136bd234020e0d64/69888fd5ab6d7714186a9545/sachin-binny-bansal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal by Lev Grossman: TIME 100 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal by Lev Grossman: TIME 100 twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt136bd234020e0d64/69888fd5ab6d7714186a9545/sachin-binny-bansal.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 20, 2016 # Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal by Lev Grossman  BANGALORE, SEPTEMBER 01, 2013 : Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, founders of Flipkart.com poses for a picture at their office in Kormangala. (Photo by Jyothy Karat) BANGALORE, SEPTEMBER 01, 2013 : Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, founders of Flipkart.com poses for a picture at their office in Kormangala. (Photo by Jyothy Karat)Jyothy Karat Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal (no relation) started Flipkart in 2007 as an online bookstore. For seed money, they pooled their savings: around $10,000\. Their data center was their apartment in Bangalore. So it could have been the height of arrogance when the two Bansals, who had worked together at Amazon, told investors Flipkart could be worth $100 million in a decade. It turned out to be modesty: Flipkart now has 75 million users and a $13 billion valuation. And Binny and Sachin do have modest lifestyles, by billionaire standards, but they’re also nimble tacticians and hardheaded realists, and they dream big. India’s vast marketplace—nearly four times as populous as the U.S., more open than China, with a wondrous dearth of entrenched brick-and-mortar superstores—is the biggest prize left in the e-commerce universe. They’ll have to fight it out with foreign heavyweights like Amazon and Alibaba, but it’s safe to say that no one is going to underestimate Binny and Sachin again. _Grossman is a senior writer for TIME covering culture and technology_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/"},"headline":"Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal","datePublished":"2016-04-20T16:55:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:13:34.840Z","description":"E-commerce upstarts","url":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt136bd234020e0d64/69888fd5ab6d7714186a9545/sachin-binny-bansal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt136bd234020e0d64/69888fd5ab6d7714186a9545/sachin-binny-bansal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4300001/binny-bansal-and-sachin-bansal-2016-time-100/","name":"Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal"}}]}] ```